Controlling access to your web archives

The following methods control access such that your patrons, the general public, and/or your Archive-It users can or cannot view specific content that you designate. Please note that changes made to the public or private status of collections and seeds can take up to 1 hour to reflect on the public-facing partner site, archive-it.org. Also note that at this time it is not possible to completely delete archived content, however if requested Archive-It's web archivists can remove all access.

How to make an entire collection private or public

You can make an entire collection "private," meaning that this collection, including all seeds, will no longer appear on your www.archive-it.org homepage and will only be browsable or full-text searchable when logged in to the web application. When you create a new collection it will be set to private by default, however you can change that setting at any time from the Collection Overview screen:

How to make a specific seed within your collection private or public

If you choose, you can keep a seed private, while other seeds and the collection around them remain public. This will remove the specific seed from your collection page on www.archive-it.org, however this content will still be accessible via full text search or direct Wayback URL.

To do so, begin by navigating to your collection's "Seeds" tab, select the seed that you wish to make private by checking the box next to it in the table, and click the "Edit Settings" button:

Within the dialog box that this process opens, toggle the Access box to "Private" and click "Apply" to save your change:

You can repeat this process in order to again check the "visible to the public" check box and restore access to the public at any time.

How to make multiple seeds within your collection private or public

If you choose, you can keep some seeds private, while other seeds and the collection around them remain public. This will remove the specific seed from your collection page on www.archive-it.org, however this content will still be accessible via full text search or a direct Wayback URL.

To do so, begin by navigating to your collection's "Seeds" tab, select all of the seeds that you wish to make private by checking the box next to them in the table, and click the "Edit Settings" button:

Within the dialog box that this process opens, toggle the Access box to "Private" and click "Apply" to save your change:

You can repeat this process in order to again check the "visible to the public" check box and restore access to the public at any time. Please not that this change may take several minutes to apply to the collection as it appears on the Archive-It.org homepage.

How to provide access to a private collection

Why provide access to a private collection?

Archive-It partners create “private” collections, which do not appear for searching and browsing among their publicly listed collections at archive-it.org, for many reasons. They may, for instance, wish to create a “dark archive” of institutional content that is not for public consumption, or to embargo access to donated materials for a given amount of time in accordance with a deed of gift. However, they may also need to facilitate access to audiences more select than the general public, such as institutional stakeholders or donors themselves, while the archives remain “private” to the wider public. In such cases, Archive-It partners can provide access to collections that include the same browsing and searching features that public collections do, but which do not appear among public collections at archive-it.org.

How to do it

To facilitate access to a private collection, begin by navigating to the collection’s management interface in the Archive-It web application and, if it is not already, toggle the collection from “Public” to “Private” under the Collection Settings heading (note that collections are set to “Private” by default upon creation). This action will reveal a “Private Collection Link”:

The Private Collection Link is a URL, in which a Universal Unique Identifier (UUID) code appears where an Archive-It collection number would typically appear:

Typical collection URL: https://archive-it.org/collections/6374

Private collection URL: https://archive-it.org/collections/[UUID]

Each UUID generated for a private collection link is an “obfuscated hash,” meaning that it cannot be guessed by a human or machine. You can, however, follow the link and share it directly with select patrons in order to access a landing page for the collection on the web:

This landing page will include all of the descriptive information that would normally be included for a public collection. It will also include the following disclaimer:

It will not, however, appear among those collections on your account’s landing page:

Note that this feature does not enable you to selectively provide access on a seed-by-seed basis, as is possible with public collections, rather all seeds in a private collection will be accessible by the means described above.

How to restrict access to your archives based on IP range

Why restrict by IP range?

Some partners choose to restrict access to their archived content only to those users who are in their reading room, or another specific IP range. The collection, seeds and any metadata will still be visible on the public site, however patrons who try to access content from outside of the specified IP range (for example, a home computer) would then see an "Access Denied" message, which can be customized to your institution.

How to do it

If you would like restrict access to some or all of your archives by IP range, please contact us directly. Please designate the collections that you want to restrict, as well as the allowed IP range.

How to remove access to select content through Wayback and Search

Why remove access through Wayback and Search?

Upon request, we can remove access to archived content as it appears in Wayback and results from text searches, both internal to your account and to the public. This is most often useful when erroneous content is captured, sometimes even including sensitive materials that our partners do not want accessible via Wayback or included in their search results.

How to do it

If you would like us to remove access to any of your archived content as it currently appears in Wayback and search results, please contact us directly and provide the information:

Name of the collection(s) that you would like the restriction to apply to, and as much of the following information as is relevant to your case:

Host Name, such as: example.com

URL, such as: private.example.com/personal/

Specific capture date or date range, such as: June 15, 2015, or 6/14-8/15

Content will be suppressed from appearing in Wayback immediately. It will also be removed from the search index following the next crawl run on a collection following the addition of the restriction.

Comments

Hello, I have a question about the section "How to provide access to a private collection" specifically, the private link that we can provide to external stakeholders. Can a new UUID be generated to create a new link? The reason I am asking is that if we share the link, we want to be able to change it from time-to-time in case the person we gave the link to shares it with someone else. So being able to re-generate the UUID would be a security measure. Thanks!